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museum_geek

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Everything posted by museum_geek

  1. Our recruitment/interview weekend for prospective students will take place next weekend. I don't have any concrete info on who has been invited but usually 8-10 people come for the visit, with invites going out ~2 weeks prior to the visit date. With that said, most but not all people who end up getting admitted get invited to the visiting weekend, and I even know at least one person who was admitted late in a cycle without any prior contact from the department after submitting their application.
  2. Yeah, it's pretty common. I just spent the last 6 weeks taking courses in an indigenous language while doing preliminary fieldwork. In fact, my department encourages PhD students to use the summer in between 1st and 2nd year to learn a new language that will help with fieldwork.
  3. You have a strong CV - VISTA and Peace Corps will look especially good to anthro programs. You don't need publications or a Master's thesis to get into PhD programs, but you will need to be more specific about a potential research topic - geographic region, especially. If you have the money for it, I would suggest applying to a mix of PhDs and MAs. You'll probably get some PhD offers, but a Master's might be a good route as well in terms of honing your research topic. This comes with a giant caveat - only do a Master's if you get funding! I'm not sure which programs have funding available, but there's more info about that elsewhere in the forum if you care to find it. If you're interested in MedAnth, you might also check out the PhD programs at WUSTL, UCSF, UCSD, and Brown. Best of luck with your applications!
  4. I've been in my program for a year and I'm still expecting this to happen!
  5. I can't speak to other people's experiences, but after I accepted my offer last year I got a quick note - maybe two sentences - from my DGS confirming that they had seen my acceptance and were looking forward to seeing me in the Fall. I didn't hear anything else from them until mid-June, which is when they sent along a giant packet with orientation information, insurance/tax forms, my first TA assignment, etc.
  6. @EvelynD Congrats, Washington State is a great program. Have fun in the PNW!
  7. @Bschaefer Congrats! Amazing program, awesome location, and of course I'm super jealous that you get to collaborate with the Field Museum!
  8. @Bschaefer @EvelynD So happy this cycle worked out for both of you! Which programs did y'all end up choosing?
  9. From what I've heard, UVA has sent out a few offers - at least one each for linguistics and archaeology. I've also heard that at least one of the sociocultural folks from the visit got an offer, so @AnthroScout if you haven't heard by now you're probably on the waitlist. It might be worth checking in with the department at this point to ask about your status and reiterate your interest in the program.
  10. @GameofLoans16 If you applied to MAs this cycle, then funding should be your top priority.
  11. Congratulations! I'm so happy things have worked out for you this cycle!
  12. Don't take out loans for grad school, especially if it's for a PhD program! However, it might be worth talking to the department to see if they can scrounge up any more money before moving on to another offer.
  13. Hi! I'm currently a PhD student at UVA, and while I'm not sure about when interview invitations are going out, I can tell you that our recruitment weekend for finalists will be going on February 22-24. When I applied to the program, the process went like this: I participated in a phone interview during the first week of February letting me know I was a semifinalist, and was notified shortly thereafter that I was a finalist and invited to the recruitment weekend. The recruitment weekend is an event where ~10 finalists spend three days in Charlottesville living with current grad students, interview with faculty members, and attend a couple different parties at the homes of faculty members. It can be a stressful experience, but ultimately it's a great way to find out if you'll be a good fit in the department. In any case, if you've reached the semifinal stage you should be hearing from the department soon about a phone interview. If you make it through the phone interview, you'll be a finalist and you'll be invited to visit Charlottesville. If that's the case, shoot me a PM - I'd be happy to show you around town!
  14. There's a reason many people take two cycles to find a decent offer - there's lots of competition, especially for programs that fully fund all their students. When I applied last year, the DGS at the program I ended up at told me they received about 75 applications. They accepted six people, and we ended up with a cohort of four people. Ultimately, I think it's best not to think about the numbers game and just try to control what you can control. You will get the right offer if you keep at it!
  15. Looking over my spreadsheet from last year, it looks like UC San Diego is due January 3, Rice is due January 15. Also, Vanderbilt doesn't have an application fee!
  16. It really shouldn't make a difference. Referring to the discipline as social anthropology usually means you follow the older British school of anthropology, i.e. Radcliffe-Brown, Bronislaw Malinowski, W.H.R River, A.C. Haddon - basically structural functionalism with a later move towards the ideas of Gluckman's Manchester School. To be honest, a lot of programs consider the terms interchangeable. Basically, social anthropology has historically sought to isolate particular social systems which determine kinship, interpersonal relations, economy, law, etc. On the other hand, cultural anthropology is more concerned with the ways in which broader cultural milieu affect individual subjectivities. Cultural anthropology has basically sought to outline the customs and institutions of a culture, and in so doing attempt to dig into what it means to be an individual in a given culture. So, using the term sociocultural anthropology typically includes a bit of both social and cultural anthropology, in that it includes a more rounded view of culture which brings the so-called "culture concept" outside academia while remaining valid for ethnological study. So, starting at the beginning of the 20th century, we see a move towards sociocultural anthropology spearheaded by Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, Marcel Mauss (influenced by Durkheim), Ruth Benedict, Zora Neale Hurston, W.E.B DuBois, Saussure, etc. Basically, unless you somehow manage to hop into a time machine that transports you to the 1930s, you shouldn't worry about it.
  17. I don't know a ton about archaeology but I can say that an acquaintance of mine is a first year PhD student at William and Mary and he does historical archaeology in West Africa . He's really enjoyed the program so far, and has nothing but nice things to say about Williamsburg. Take that as you will, but from what he's told me W&M is a great place to do Historical Archaeology.
  18. I got my first rejection in the middle of January, first interview at the end of January, first acceptance the first week of February, and then did some more interviews/visiting weekends late February/early March.
  19. You should relax and take some time for self care. The application process is a grind, and it only gets more difficult once you're admitted, so I would suggest getting some rest!
  20. I wouldn't worry too much about not hearing back from professors - it's a busy time of year, plus some have policies of not speaking with potential students until after they've had a chance to read applications (something I didn't find out until after I applied). Last year, only about half of the POIs I contacted responded to me, and of those that did only about half were meaningful responses beyond "Interesting project, I encourage you to apply, good luck, etc." As for timeframe, four business days is certainly reasonable, but I did have some faculty respond to me weeks after my initial email, explaining that they were on leave or in the field. The important thing here is that you've heard back from your top three choices - way to go!
  21. Totally anecdotal, but I have a friend who is doing African Historical Archaeology at William and Mary and they love the program so far!
  22. This is a great starting point for your SoP. I think writing about your intention to study these issues in whatever region you want to work in should be more than enough, and mentioning some of the theoretical frameworks you're interested in (as you've already done) is plenty. I don't think adcomms will expect you to have a fully formed project just quite yet, especially coming straight out of undergrad. I wouldn't spend any time writing about your lack of ethnographic research - instead, write about what you have done. What you're working on in your thesis, how you see your current research contributing to future work (if at all), etc. You should also spend at least a paragraph writing about your fit within the department and which professors you want to work with. Feel free to PM me if you want someone to look over your SoP. I'm also happy to share what I wrote for last year's application cycle - this goes for everyone applying this Fall!
  23. I got multiple offers last cycle and I had never been to my proposed field site.
  24. Your scores are fine - I had a 163 VR and a 150 Quant and got multiple offers last cycle. In the case of anthropology admissions, GRE scores are one of those things that won't sink an application unless they are absolutely horrendous, like 140 VR 140 Quant or something like that.
  25. That's a pretty good list of schools you're applying to, but I'd advise you to drop Johns Hopkins - their PhD program focuses solely on sociocultural anthropology. You also might want to check out Stony Brook and Penn State, which are both known for having strong physical and biological anthropology programs.
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